Alexa Announce Feature - Text to Speach via Alexa now a possability?

@ReneTode - as I am running Hassio, should I run the .alexa_remote_control_plain.sh script as I read in some post in the tread?
I really would like to this to get going stable - I would like to stay with Alexa i.o. moving to google home
I think the condition I am now in is actually worse then before…before it was not working, period.
Now it is sometimes working and sometimes not working.

then you need to try to find out what you do different in the moments that it isnt working.
but it is very well possible that a slow connection, makes that the call is timed out.
first step that i would take is look into the alexa app history, to see if your commands all come through.

there are several things around.
plain (which is i think nothing more then the original) which is just a linux executable.
something that is adapted for connecting to HA, which i believe has special output
the alexa_mediaplayer component.

i just use the plain. because i like to tinker
if you only want tts and not things like starting the weatherreport i suggest you start using the media_player component. if installed correct it seems a bit more reliable and more easy to use.

Were you ever able to get the cookie generator working? I’m not even sure of the steps to follow. :frowning:
I am using amazon.com. last message I saw from you, was that you were having issues with .de

I we could get this working, this script would be perfect.

i think you might get it working, but in my case it kept telling me that it couldnt login to some amazon.com pages.

edit: i found a workaround that is working for me now.
i’m sure its at least 2 weeks, so i get a warning now when i need to renew, and i have a sensor showing me if the cookie is still there.

No rush, I’m out of town for work at the moment. But when you have some time would you mind sharing what you’ve done to automate the cookie process?

pm me or contact me on discord when you got time and we will see if we can get it working for you.

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Should the other readers all PM you too? :slight_smile: If you can share what you have here, more people can benefit from it. …including those of us thinking “is this still a problem stopping me from getting an Alexa, or is this actually solved?”

Please share !

i already shared and didnt succeed.
that doesnt mean that i cant try to get someone using another environment then me to get it up and running.
if i can help him and he will get it working, he for sure will share what we did get done.

and for those who are trying to decide if there should be a reason to buy an alexa?
if you think that this is what you need for you to buy it, then dont.

TTS is possible with this or with the mediaplayer component, but however you look at it, its a hack and not an official amazon supported feature.
all that is possible now with this hack or the mediaplayer component can be gone tommorow when amazon changes stuff! and you wont even be able to complain about it, because its nothing more then a hack!

if you dont mind that, then please spend a few bucks (wait for the next sale and you get it almost for free) and hack away. but dont expect anything presented on a platter. join in on the hacking.

satisfied @chickenandporn

i See you miss the point. Sharing involves giving, and some vulnerability. It lets others take what you have and move it a step further.

To understand latency a bit better, send me a PM.

try giving as much as i do, and you can talk about it.
untill then please dont try to tell me what i should do, and that i should give and or share.

if you want to know what i have, and try to move it a step further, then read back!!

this is the last thing ill say here about this to avoid polluting this topic anymore.
if you think you have anything usefull to say about my sharing, then you can PM me.

I’m not sure when this became a competition (“as much as I do”); I’m sorry if I offended you or presented a competition.

In general, sharing content directly (as you’d see in StackExchange answers, GitHub, etc) is more helpful to those people searching late at night looking for a solution or idea independently rather than the latency of a PM and reply. I’m not sure how much it matters what you’ve done than what you’re doing, but if you’re beyond advice in this regard, then so be it, I regret the optimism in trying to share lessons of my own failures.

Again, you imply you’ve been doing this a very long time. I defer to your experience in this regard. If there’s a way to officially apologize for this competition I’ve erroneously entered, please let me know.

someone knows if it is possible with the script to add a delay between sentences as described here?

nope, isnt possible.
the scripts is using the alexa skill “simon say” which alexa also has included in its routines.

and there is no relation between that, and what you can do with self created intents.
its just a reapeat from what is send there.

i noticed that they already made responses better based on , and .
but even that was unexpected. so all we can hope is that the skill in the future will be even more expanded.

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There is an issue with the script - it uses a regexp to replace punctuation.
This is being resolved in later versions by writing out post data into a temp file to avoid json issues the regexp was in place to solve, or you can hack the speak park of the script to add the full stop into the regular expression remembering to escape “.”, which doesn’t seem to cause any issues.

Note also 10.1 (10 point 1) would read 101 with the version of the script with the issue.

Having said that - you can add a sentence ‘pause’ without changing the script yourself with a hyphen ‘-’.

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Thank you both

This may sound silly, but how does one go about ‘exposing’ a script to alexa? When I do a search for ‘expose’ lots of entries come up but none on how to do it. I am using hass.io 0.88.1 with custom comonents/alexa/media_player.py version 0.10.2. I create a script in HA but the Alexa App does not see it, I assume because it is not exposed. I see people have created scripts ‘filtered’ but I think that is the default. Yet, I can find no instructions on how to expose a script unless it has something to do with other versions of alexa_tts.
This may be a noob question but searching has yielded nothing so far.

Bart

there are 4 ways i know of to connect HA and alexa (besides the mediaplayer)

  1. the Emulated Hue component. in my eyes the most simple you just add some lines to the HA configuration and start to discover devices in the Alexa app. dont forget to restrict what you show to alexa, because if its over 48 alexa wont see any.
  2. HAASKA has a little more options but is also more difficult to set up (i didnt try it)
  3. the home assistant cloud app also makes it possible when i have understand correct, but has a montly fee.
  4. creating your own skill on amazons servers

for sure when starting to build your own environment its wise to keep going back to the docs.
most important this page


and type the type of component you like (in this case alexa) and you mostly find a way to connect it.

and dont forget to browse through all of them. there are quite a lot of components that you might find usefull that dont require devices.

I’m constantly finding myself on the components page as a result of my searches. I only hesitate to include new functionality until I get what I have working reliably.

And I agree. It looks like the emulated hue dummy bulb may be the easiest. I’m guessing that is what exposes a script? By making it start when the emulated hue bulb gets a command?

I am trying to stay away from all cloud services although Alexa is essentially the cloud. I’ve written a few private skills so I’m no stranger to them but they only work for my account. So when half the echo devices are on my wife’s account, those won’t have the skill. Just another complication and reason to try to avoid the cloud.
Thanks for all the help Rene.
Bart

the emulated hue is not a bulb, but it fakes a Hue hub.
it exposes all entities you allow to alexa, and from that moment you can find them in devices in the alexa app and use them.

so any light, switch or input_boolean that you got in HA can be turned on from that moment.

why have some alexas on 1 account and the others on another account?
probably the person that bought it?
there is no logical reason to keep them in 2 accounts. just set them up in 1 account and you got way less trouble.

I hear you Rene.

My wife is the prime holder so she likes her own account but it’s only a problem with skills. By implementing a virtual alexa hue bulb, I can use Alexa routines which show up on both account devices. If it doesn’t, I’ll post it here!
There is a thread somewhere on the forum where someone uses routines to set a level for the hue light and that kicks off either an automation or script (or both) depending on the light level setting. So that’s what I will attempt next.